II
[27] If a father makes money by his son’s unchastity, the son is released from the duty of providing food or shelter for his father while the latter is alive—ἀποθανόντα δ’ αὐτὸν θαπτέτω καὶ τἆλλα ποιείτω τὰ νομιζόμενα: Solonian law ap. Aeschin., Tim. 13.
[28] Dem. 43, 57–8.
[29] Sch. Soph., Ant. 255. Philo ap. Euseb., PE. viii, 358 D; 359 A. See Bernays, Berichte Ber. Ak. 1876, p. 604, 606 f.
[30] Ψ 71 ff.
[31] Isoc. 14, 55.
[32] The βάραθρον at Athens, the Καιάδας at Sparta. But the bodies were often given up to the relatives to bury, and in any case the refusal of burial can only have been temporary—it is incredible that they could have wished to leave the bodies to putrify in the open air.
[33] Athenian law, Xen., HG. 1, 7, 22; common Greek institution at least as against temple-robbers, D.S. 16, 25. Examples of the enforcement of this law in the fifth and fourth centuries discussed by W. Vischer, Rh. Mus. 20, 446 ff.—Suicides in some places were refused burial honours (in Thebes and Cyprus); even in Athens it was customary to cut off the hand of the suicide and bury it separately (Aeschin., Ctes. 244). This is the punishment of αὐτόχειρες. Self-starvation was considered less shocking and that is perhaps why it occurs so frequently as a method of suicide. Cf. Thalheim, Gr. Rechtsalt. p. 44 f. Perhaps also the religious objection of the Pythagoreans (and Platonists) to taking this means of escape from an existence that has become unbearable rests upon popular feeling and belief—it was not shared at all by the enlightened of later ages. (There is, however, nothing in ancient beliefs that points to the idea that the body of the suicide should be allowed only burial, not burning. Acc. [188] to the Ἰλιὰς μικρά Aias after taking his own life was buried, not burnt, διὰ τὴν ὀργὴν τοῦ βασιλέως—fr. 3: [Apollod.] Epit. v, 7. There is no ground for supposing that the fable of Philostr., H. 721, p. 188 K., acc. to which Kalchas declared the burning of the bodies of suicides to be not ὅσιον, is taken out of an ancient poem; as Welcker does Kl. Schr. ii, 291.)
[34] Cf. the words of Teles περὶ φυγῆς ap. Stob., Fl. 40, 8 (iii, p. 738, 17 ff. Hens.), and the answer of Krates Cyn. to Demetrius of Phaleron ap. Plu., Adul. 28, p. 69 CD. It is worth remarking that in the fourth and even third centuries it was still necessary to reply to the idea ὅμως δὲ τὸ ἐπὶ ξένης ταφῆναι ὄνειδος. When later on the cosmopolitanism preached by the Cynics (and after their model by Teles) becomes really common property it seems no longer necessary to introduce special grounds of consolation for having to be buried in foreign soil into pamphlets περὶ φυγῆς. At least this is not done by the Stoic Musonius or the Platonizing Plutarch. Cf. also Philodem. Mort., p. 33–4 Mekl.
[35] This is the reason why so often the bones or ashes of those who die abroad are collected and brought home for burial by their relations. Exx. ap. Westermann on Dem., Eubul. 70; cf. also Plu., Phoc. 37.
[36] Ar., Ec. 1030. Origanon (wild marjoram, white thyme) possesses apotropaic power: it keeps away evil spirits. The ancients knew of the virtue possessed by these plants of scaring snakes, ants, and other vermin—Aristot., HA. 4, 8, 534b, 22; Plin. 10, 195; Thphr., CP. 6, 5, 4; Diosc., MM. iii, 29 = i, p. 375 Spr.; Gp. 12, 19, 9: cf. Niclas ad Gp. 13, 10, 5. Modern superstition employs them against goblins and water sprites, witches and ghosts, Grimm, p. 1214; p. 1820, n. 980. If marjoram and gentian are laid by women in child-bed ghosts and devils can do them no harm “for they shun such herbs”: J. Ch. Männlingen ap. Alwin Schultz, Alltagsleben e. d. Frau im 18 Jahrh., p. 195 f. The two purposes are closely connected. The pungent odour of herbs and burning stuff keeps away snakes as do nocentes spiritus monstra noxia: Pall. 1, 35 = 11, 3, p. 49 Sohn. The same thing applies to monstra noxia if they try to approach the corpse in the shape of snakes or insects (just as the ghost in Apul., M. ii, 25, approaches the corpse in the shape of a weasel; where we also read that the versipelles which threaten the corpse et aves et rursum canes et mures immo vero etiam muscas induunt: ii, 22). So, too, the marjoram has a kathartic effect on the corpse, i.e. it is a means of keeping off underworld spirits.
[37] Ar., Ec. 1031. The corpse lay on vine branches in several of the recently discovered Dipylon graves at Athens: Athen. Mitt. 1893, pp 165, 184. Superstitious reasons (as in the cases where olive leaves are used as a bed: see [below]) are to be suspected in this case, too, but can hardly be proved: cf. Fredrich, Sarkophagstud., Nach. Gött. Ges. Wiss. Ph. Cl. 1895, pp. 18, 69; Anrich, Gr. Mysterienw. 102, 3. Apart from this the ἄμπελος does not seem to have lustral effect.
[38] λήκυθοι, τοὔστρακον: Ar., Ec. 1032 f.; χέρνιψ ἐπὶ φθιτῶν πύλαις: Eur., Al. 98 ff. The bowl was called ἀρδάνιον: Sch. Ar., Ec. 1033; Poll. viii, 65 (cf. Phot. 346, 1 ὀρδάνιον). It contained water fetched from another house: Hesych, ὄστρακον—obviously because the water in the house where the corpse lay was regarded as polluted. (Thus when the fire, for example, is “polluted”, fresh fire is brought in from outside: Plu., Q. Gr. 24, p. 297 A; Arist. 20.) Those who left the house purified themselves with it: Hesych. ἀρδάνια, cf. [189] πηγαῖον, πηγαῖον ὕδωρ. A laurel branch (as holy-water sprinkler, as commonly in lustrations) was placed in it: Sch. Eur., Al. 98.
[39] Serv., A. iii, 680: apud Atticos funestae domus huius (cupressi) frondo velantur. The object may have been to warn the superstitious against approaching the “unclean” house: it is a characteristic of the δεισιδαίμων, οὔτε ἐπιβῆναι μνήματι, οὔτε ἐπὶ νεκρὸν οὔτ’ ἐπὶ λεχὼ ἐλθεῖν ἐθελῆσαι, Thphr., Ch. 16. This at least was the reason given at Rome for a similar custom: Serv., A. 3, 64; 4, 507.
[40] Crowning of the dead with garlands, afterwards a general custom, is first mentioned in the Ἀλκμαιωνίς (epical, but hard to date precisely: fr. ii, p. 76 Kink.). On the “Archemoros” vase a woman is about to place a myrtle-wreath on the head of Archemoros. The myrtle is sacred to the χθόνιοι, and hence the myrtle-crown belongs to the Mystai of Demeter as well as to the dead: see Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., Ran. 330; Ister ap. Sch. Soph., OC. 681. Grave-monuments too were crowned and planted especially with myrtles; Eur., El. 324, 512; cf. Thphr., HP. 5, 8, 3; Vg., A. iii, 23. Not only the dead but graves too were frequently crowned with σέλινον, parsley: Plu., Timol. 26; Smp. 5, 3, 2, p. 676 D; Diogen. viii, 57, and others; cf. above, chap. iv, [n. 21]. The crowning invariably implies some form of consecration to a god. Acc. to Tertul., Cor. Mil. 10, the dead were crowned quoniam et ipsi idola statim fiunt habitu et cultu consecrationis; which at least gets nearer the real sense of the practice than the view of Sch. Ar., Lys. 601: στέφανος ἐδίδοτο τοῖς νεκροῖς ὡς τὸν βίον διηγωνισμένοις.
[41] Pl., Lg. 959 A. Poll. iii, 65. A still stranger reason added ap. Phot. πρόθεσις.
[42] Permission to attend either the πρόθεσις of the corpse (and the funeral lamentation) or the funeral procession (the ἐκφορά) given only to women of kinship μεχρὶ ἀνεψιότητος: Law ap. Dem. 43, 62–3: i.e. within the ἀγχιστεία, to which alone the duty of the cult of the dead belonged in principle. Only these women of the immediate kin are μιαινόμεναi in the case of death: cf. Hdt. vi, 58; this is the reason for the restrictions laid down by the funeral regulation from Keos (SIG. 877, 25 ff.), which makes an even narrower selection within the ranks of the ἀγχιστεία. (From l. 22 μὴ ὑποτιθέναι, etc., the law speaks of the πρόθεσις, even though at the beginning only the ἐκφορά is in question.)
[43] ἀμυχὰς κοπτομένων ἀφεῖλεν. Plu., Sol. 21. The democratizing of life in Attica after Solon’s time may have contributed to the carrying out there of provisions restricting the elaborate funeral rites of the old aristocratic period. The practice of κόπτεσθαι ἐπὶ τεθνηκότι appears, however, to have remained in use: beating of the head at funeral lamentations is a favourite motif in Attic vase-paintings (the so-called “Prothesis” vases); cf. Monum. dell’ Instit. viii, 4, 5; iii, 60, etc. See Benndorf, Griech. Sicil. Vasenb. 1.
[44] τὸ θρηνεῖν πεποιημένα, Plu., Sol. 21: by which is meant funeral hymns carefully prepared beforehand and perhaps ordered from professional θρήνων σοφισταί, not spontaneous expressions of grief breaking out as though involuntarily.
[45] Plu., Sol. 21: καὶ τὸ κωκύειν ἄλλον ἐν ταφαῖς ἑτέρων ἀφεῖλεν. This must surely mean: Solon forbade dirges to be sung at a funeral of one person in honour of another, different from the person actually being buried. (ἑτέρων is only used for variety after ἄλλον and simply = ἄλλων: as frequently by Attic writers: μὴ προϊέμενον ἄλλον ἑτέρῳ τὴν ἀλλαγὴν, Pl., Lg. viii, 849 E: ἕτερον—ἄλλον Isoc. 10, 36, etc.). [190] The tendency to extend the funeral hymns to include others besides the dead man is implied by a prohibition in a funeral ordinance of the πατρία of the Λαβυάδαι at Delphi (fifth–fourth century B.C.), BCH. ’95, p. 11, l. 39 ff. τῶν δὲ πρόστα τεθνακότων ἐν τοῖς σαμάτεσσι μὴ θρηνεῖν μηδ’ ὀτοτύζεν (at the funeral of another person). Was Homer thinking of something of the kind in Τ 302: Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν—?
[46] In Athens it had once been the custom ἱερεῖα προσφάττειν πρὸ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς, i.e. while still in the house of the dead person: [Pl.] Min. 315 C. Such a sacrifice before the ἐκφορά (which is not described till l. 1261 ff.) is implied by Euripides, Hel. 1255, at the burial of the dead body found in the sea: προσφάζεται μὲν αἷμα πρῶτα νερτέροις—where προσφάγιον is used inaccurately of sacrifice at the grave, in which case the πρό is meaningless; as also in the insc. from Keos (SIG. 877, 21). πρόσφαγμα is also thus used, Eur., Hec. 41. Plu. (Sol. 21) says of Solon: ἐναγίζειν δὲ βοῦν οὐκ εἴασεν. Possibly Solon forbade the sacrifice of animals before the ἐκφορά, since the author of the Ps.-Platonic Minos seems also to refer to such a prohibition.
[47] The Solonian restrictions says Plu. (Sol. 21) have been for the most part adopted in our (i.e. the Boeotian) νόμοι—as acc. to the indubitable witness of Cicero, Solon’s funeral regulations had been reproduced eisdem prope verbis in the tenth of the Twelve Tables by the Decemviri. Limits set to ceremonial mourning in Sparta: Plu., Lyc. 27 (whence Inst. Lac., 18, p. 238 D), in Syracuse by Gelon: D.S. 11, 38, 2; cf. “Charondas”, Stob., Fl. 44, 40 M. = iv, 2, 24, p. 153, 10 H. Some degree of restriction was imposed on their members (about the beginning of the fourth century B.C.) by the πατρία of the Λαβυάδαι in Delphi in the τεθμός published in the BCH. ’95, p. 9 ff.
[48] We have a very naive expression of the ideas lying behind such violent lamentations, self-inflicted injuries, and other excessive demonstrations of grief in the presence of the dead body, when e.g. in Tahiti people wound themselves and then “call out to the soul of the dead man to witness their attachment to him” (Ratzel, Hist. of Mankind, i, 330); cf. Waitz-Gerland, Anthrop. vi, 402.
[49] It is a very ancient idea common to many different nations that too violent expressions of grief for the dead man may disturb his rest and make him return: see Mannhardt, Götter der deutschen Völker, 1860, p. 290 (for Germany in partic. see Wuttke, Deut. Volksabergl.2, § 728, p. 431; Rochholz, D. Glaube u. Brauch, i, 207). Similar superstition in Greece is referred to in Lucian, Luct. 24 (in which the lateness of the witness does not prevent the belief from being ancient). The survivors who prolong beyond reason their laments are asked: μέχρι τίνος ὀδυρόμεθα; ἔασον ἀναπαύσασθαι τοὺς τοῦ μακαρίου δαίμονας.—In Pl., Mx. 248 B, the dead say δεόμεθα πατέρων καὶ μητέρων εἰδέναι ὅτι οὐ θρηνοῦτες οὐδὲ ὀλοφυρόμενοι ἡμᾶς ἡμῖν μάλιστα χαριοῦνται—thus violent grief is intended in Greece, too, to please the dead: see last [note]—ἀλλὰ . . . οὕτως ἀχάριστοι εἶεν ἂν μάλιστα: while acc. to “Charondas”, Stob., Fl. iv, 2, 24, p. 153 H.: ἀχαριστία ἐστὶ πρὸς δαίμονας χθονίους λύπη ὑπὲρ τὸ μέτρον γιγνομένη.
[50] ἐκφέρειν τὸν ἀποθανόντα τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ ᾗ ἂν προθῶνται, πρὶν ἥλιον ἐξέχειν, Solonian law in D. 43, 62; cf. Antipho, Chor. 34. Klearch. ap. Proclus in Pl. Rp. ii, 114 Kroll: Kleonymos in Athens, τεθνάναι δόξας τρίτης ἡμέρας οὔσης κατὰ τὸν νόμον προὐτέθη, i.e. it was the morning of the third day, immediately before the ἐκφορά, the πρόθεσις having occupied the whole of the second day (quite differently taken by Maass, Orpheus, 1895, p. 232, 46; but hardly correctly. It is scarcely probable that a man τεθνάναι δόξας, i.e. seeming to those [191] around him to be dead, should be recognized by these same people and treated as merely in a trance—as in fact, was the case). So, too, in the analogous story of Thespesios of Soli in Plutarch, S. Num. Vind. 22, p. 563 D, τριταῖος, ἤδη περὶ τὰς ταφὰς αὐτάς, ἀνήνεγκε (Philostr., VA. 3, 38, p. 114, 28 K.: the wife of the man who has just died περὶ τὴν εὐνὴν ὕβρισε, τριταίου κειμένου [sc. τοῦ ἀνδρός] γαμηθεῖσα ἑτέρῳ: i.e. immediately before the ἐκφορά, while the dead man still was in the house). Similar customs are implied for the Greeks in Cyprus ap. Ant. Lib. 39, 5, p. 235, 21 West. [= p. 122, 7 f. Mart.]: ἡμέρᾳ δὲ τριτῃ τὸ σῶμα προήνεγκαν εἰς ἐμφανές (εἰς τοὐμφανές?) οἱ προσήκοντες. Further, acc. to Plato’s view as given in Lg. 959 A, there should be τριταία πρὸς τὸ μνῆμα ἐκφορά.
[51] Before sunrise: D. 43, 62 (more distinctly commanded by a law of Dem. Phal.: Cic., Lg. ii, 66). On the other hand, it was considered a disgrace to be buried during the night: ἦ κακὸς κακῶς ταφήσῃ, νυκτὸς οὐκ ἐν ἡμέρᾳ, Eur., Tro. 448.
[52] So in particular the funeral-law from Keos, SIG. 877; cf. Plu., Sol. 21; Bergk, Rh. Mus. 15, 468. Funeral-law of the Labyadai at Delphi, l. 29 f.: στρῶμα δὲ ἓν ὑποβαλέτω καὶ ποικεφάλαιον ἓν ποτιθέτω (for the dead).
[53] Reproduced Monum. dell’ Instituto, ix, 391 [and in Rayet-Collignon, Céramique grecque, Pl. i].
[54] The law in D. 43, 62 (cf. 64), makes restrictions in the attendance at a funeral which are to apply to women only (and only then for those under 60): men seem therefore to be granted permission indiscriminately. We are told too in Plu., Sol. 21, that at the ἐκκομιδή Solon had not forbidden ἐπ’ ἀλλότρια μνήματα βαδίζειν—for men that is, we must suppose. The men went in front in procession; the women followed: D. 43, 62. Evidently the same applied in Keos: SIG. 877, 20.—Pittakos as aesymnetes in Mitylene forbade absolutely accedere quemquam in funus aliorum, Cic., Lg. ii, 65.—Funeral-law of the Labyadai (Delphi), l. 42 ff.: from the burial ἀπῖμεν ϝοἴκαδε ἕκαστον, ἔχθω ὁμεστίων καὶ πατραδελφεῶν καὶ πενθερῶν κἠκγόνων καὶ γαμβρῶν, i.e. the next-of-kin of the dead in ascending and descending order.
[55] This is referred to as still-existing custom by Plato, Lg. 800 E; cf. Sch. ad loc.; Hesych. Καρῖναι. Menand. Καρίνη, Mein., Com. iv, p. 144 (Karo-phrygian funeral-flutes: Ath. 174 F: Poll. iv, 75–9).
[56] τὸν θανόντα δὲ φέρεν κατακεκαλυμμένον σιωπῇ μέχρι ἐπὶ τὸ σῆμα, SIG. 877, 11. Funeral-law of Labyad., l. 40 ff. τὸν δὲ νεκρὸν κεκαλυμμένον φερέτω σιγᾷ, κὴν ταῖς στροφαῖς (“at the street-corners”) μὴ καττιθέντων μηδαμεῖ, μηδ’ ὀτοτυζόντων ἔχθος τᾶς ϝοικίας πρίγ κ’ ἐπὶ τὸ σᾶμα ἵκωντι· τηνεῖ δ’ ἔναγος ἔστω κτλ. (the last not yet satisfactorily explained).
[57] Solon diminished (under the alleged influence of Epimenides) at funerals τὸ σκληρὸν καὶ τὸ βαρβαρικὸν ᾧ συνείχοντο πρότερον αἱ πλεῖσται γυναῖκες, Plu., Sol. 12.
[58] In the list of quotations from individual authors from the fifth century on, given in Becker Char.2 iii, 98 ff. [= E.T.3 pp. 390–1], only the foll. speak for burial as the prevailing custom: Plu., Sol. 21. οὐκ εἴασεν (Solon) συντιθέναι πλέον ἱματίων τριῶν, and Plu., Lyc. 27, συνθάπτειν οὔδεν εἰασεν (Lycurg.) ἀλλὰ ἐν φοινικίδι καὶ φύλλοις ἐλαίας θέντες τὸ σῶμα περιέστελλον: cf. Th. i, 134, 4. Cremation, on the other hand, is implied as the more common in Athens (fourth century) by Is. 4, 19: οὔτ’ ἔκαυσεν οὐτ’ ὠστολόγησεν; so, too, the will (third century) of the Peripatetic Lykon (D.L. v, 70): περὶ δὲ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς καὶ [192] καύσεως ἐπιμεληθήτωσαν κτλ. Cf. Also Teles ap. Stob. 40, 8, i, p. 747, 5 H.; τί διαφέρει ὑπὸ πυρὸς κατακαυθῆναι—which is here regarded as Greek funeral usage.—In the graves recently discovered before the Dipylon gate in Athens those belonging to the earliest period almost without exertion have their dead buried (without coffin); the following period (into the sixth century) generally burnt their dead; later, burial seems to have been more usual—see the account by Brückner and Pernice of the excavations before the Dipylon gate, Ath. Mitt. 1893, pp. 73–191. Thus it appears that in the later period burial was the prevailing practice in Attica (L. Ross, Archaeol. Aufs. i, 23), as also, being essentially cheaper than cremation, in other parts of Greece as well (a few references given in BCH. ’95, p. 144, 2).
[59] ὠστολόγησεν, Is. 4, 19.
[60] The custom of ἐκφορά on an open κλίνη is not in harmony with the intention of laying the body of the dead in a coffin, but evidently presupposes that the body is to be placed either unenveloped in the ground or else to be burnt. The practice of coffin-burial (probably introduced from the East) later became common, but was never completely harmonized with the ancient ceremonies of the ἐκφορά.
[61] Coffinless burial was usual in the graves of the “Mycenaean” period, and also in the oldest times in Attica. The Spartans were merely keeping up this ancient custom when they ἐν φοινικίδι καὶ φύλλοις ἐλαίας θέντες τὸ σῶμα περιέστελλον (buried), Plu., Lyc. 27. Here everything points to the retention of primitive usage. The bodies were buried in the ancient fashion, not burnt; they were wrapped in a crimson robe. Crimson is otherwise the special colour for war and festival dress (cf. Müller, Dorians, ii, 264); here it is used in connexion with chthonic cult: ἔχει γάρ τινα τὸ πορφυροῦν χρῶμα συμπάθειαν πρὸς τὸν θάνατον says rightly Artemid. 1, 77, p. 70, 11 H. This can hardly be because of the red colour of blood; any more than that is why θάνατος is called πορφύρεος. But even Homer Ω 796 makes Hektor’s bones wrapped πυρφυρέοις πέπλοισι—the bones only in this case instead of the whole body: clearly a vestige of an older custom which survived unchanged in Sparta. Similarly Ψ 254. So, too, e.g. in the Dipylon graves at Athens burnt bones were found wrapped in a cloth, Ath. Mitt. 18, 160–1, 185. The head of the murdered brother φοινικίδι ἐκαλυψάτην καὶ ἐθαψάτην the two other Kabeiroi in the religious myth related by Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 16 P. Crimson frequently occurs as a colour used in chthonic cult: e.g. at the ceremonial ἄραι implying consecration to the infernal deities in [Lys.] 6, 51; at sacrifices to the Plataean Heroes: Plu., Arist. 21; at the transfer of the bones of Rhesos: see above, chap. iv, [n. 36]; Polyaen. vi, 53; at sacrifices to the Eumenides, Aesch., Eum. 1028.—The custom of burial upon leaves was also retained by the Pythagoreans: they buried their dead (without burning them, Iamb., VP. 154) in myrti et oleae et populi nigrae foliis (in fact, the trees regularly sacred to the χθόνιοι), Plin. 35, 160. Fauvel (ap. Ross, Arch. Aufs. i, 31) found in graves by the Melitean gate at Athens le squelette couché sur un lit épais de feuilles d’olivier encore en état de brûler. (Olive stones in Mycenaean Graves, Tsundas, Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., ’88, p. 136; ’89, p. 152.)
[62] Thus in the letter of Hipparchos, in Phlegon, 1; similarly Xen. Eph. 3, 7, 4 (see my Griech. Roman, p. 391 n. 2). Plato wished his Euthynoi to be buried like this on stone κλῖναι (Lg. xii, 947 D); and this is probably how the bodies were placed in the rock burial-chambers provided with separate couches, such as occur at e.g. Rhodos and Kos [193] (see Ross, Arch. Aufs. ii, 384 ff., 392): cf. esp. the description given by Heusey, Mission arch. de Macédoine (Texte), p. 257 ff., ’76. It is the regular mode of burial in Etruria (following Greek models?): several skeletons have been found there lying on couches of masonry in the grave-chambers.
[63] As though the dead had not entirely departed καὶ ὅπλα καὶ σκεύη καὶ ἱμάτια συνήθη τοῖς τεθνηκόσιν συνθάπτοντες ἥδιον ἔχουσιν Plu., Ne Suav. Ep. 26, p. 1104 D. Restrictions in Law of the Labyad. (l. 19 ff.) ὅδ’ ὁ τεθμός περ τῶν ἐντοθηκῶν· μὴ πλέον πέντε καὶ τριάκοντα δραχμᾶν ἐνθέμεν, μήτε πριάμενον μήτε ϝοίκω.
[64] Helbig, Hom. Epos. 41.
[65] βελτίονες καὶ κρείττονες. Arist., Eudem. 37 [44] ap. Plu., Cons. Apoll. 27, p. 115 BC.
[66] [Pl.] Min. 315 D. To raise doubts on this point is mere perversity. It is of no avail to advance the argument (which is commonly used also against the similar statements about Rome in Serv., A. v, 64; vi, 152) that this story only intends to explain the origin of the worship of the household Lares. The Greeks did not have this particular worship, or else it was so completely forgotten that no explanatory account of its origin was ever offered.—Beside the hearth and the altar of Hestia the most ancient resting place of the head of the house must have been placed too. When the wife of Phokion had had the body of her husband burnt abroad ἐνθεμένη τῷ κόλπῳ τὰ ὀστᾶ καὶ κομίσασα νύκτωρ εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν κατώρυξε παρὰ τὴν ἑστίαν, Plu., Phoc. 37.—It was wrongly believed that in the remarkable rock-graves in the neighbourhood of the Pnyx at Athens examples of such graves situated inside the house had been discovered. See Milchhöfer in Baumeister’s Denkm. 153b.
[67] This occurs among the New Zealanders, Eskimos, etc.; cf. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, pp. 465, 511, etc.
[68] In Sparta and Tarentum: see Becker, Char.2 iii, 105 (E.T.3 p. 393). Acc. to Klearch. ap. Ath. 522 F certain men of Tarentum were struck by lightning and killed; they were then buried πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν of their houses and στῆλαι were put up in their honour. If they had really been the criminals that legend made them it would have been impossible, even in Tarentum, for them to have been buried within the walls of the city, still less before the doors of their houses—an honour given only to Heroes; cf. above, chap. iv, [n. 136]. The violent alteration of πρὸ τῶν θυρῶν into πρὸ τῶν πυλῶν in order to avoid this difficulty, is obviously rendered untenable by the previous ἑκάστη τῶν οἰκιῶν ὅσους κτλ. The legend is evidently a fiction and these διόβλητοι (to whom it appears, as Heroes, neither the funeral dirge nor the usual χοαί were offered) must have belonged to the class of those whom death by the flash of lightning raised to a higher and honoured rank (see [Append. 1]). Thus, too, the graves in the market at Megara mentioned by Becker must have been Hero-graves: see above, chap. iv, [n. 83]. These cases where the graves of Heroes are found in the middle of the city, in the market place, etc., show very plainly the essential difference that was held to exist between the Heroes and the ordinary dead.
[69] The μνῆμα κοινὸν πᾶσι τοῖς ἀπὸ Βουσέλου γενομένοις was a πολὺς τόπος περιβεβλημένος, ὥσπερ οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ἐνόμιζον: D. 43, 79. The Bouselidai composed not a γένος, but a group of five οἶκοι bound together by definitely traceable ties of kinship. The members of a γένος in its political sense no longer held graves in common possession: see Meier, de gentil. Att. 33; Dittenb., Hermes, 20, 4. The Κιμώνεια [194] μνήματα were also family-graves: Plu., Cim. 4, Marcellin. V. Th. 17, Plu., X Or., p. 838 B. It was always insisted on, for obvious reasons, that no stranger to the family should be laid in the family grave. But just as the penal clauses so often inscribed on graves of a later period were necessary to prevent the burial of strangers in those graves, so too Solon had to make a law in respect of graves ne quis alienum inferat: Cic., Lg. ii, 64.
[70] The speaker in Dem. 55, 13 ff., mentions the παλαιὰ μνήματα of the πρόγονοι of the earlier possessors of his χωρίον (country-estate). This custom of burying the family dead in the private ground of the family καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις χωρίοις συμβέβηκε. Timarchos is asked by his mother τὸ Ἀλωπέκῃσι χωρίον (which lay 11 or 12 stades away from the city walls) ἐνταφῆναι ὑπολιπεῖν αὐτῇ (in spite of which he sold it): Aeschin., Tim. 99. Examples in East Attica of walled-in family cemeteries with room for many graves: Belger, Localsage von den Gräbern Agamem., etc. (Progr. Berl. 1893), pp. 40–2. It was thus the very general custom to keep the family graves on their own ground and soil; and this corresponds closely enough with the oldest custom of all, that of burying the master of the house in his own home.—In Plu., Arist. 1, Demetr. Phal. mentions an Ἀριστείδου χωρίον ἐν ᾧ τέθαπται in Phaleron.
[71] Restriction of the growing magnificence of grave columns in Athens made by Demetr. Phal., Cic., Lg. ii, 66. (Penal clauses εἴ τίς κα θά[πτῃ ἢ ἐπί]σταμα ἐφιστᾷ κτλ. in a law from Nisyros [Berl. Phil. Woch. 1896, pp. 190, 420]: they probably do not refer to a general prohibition of tombstones altogether.)
[72] Cf. Curtius, Z. Ges. Wegebaus Gr., p. 262.
[73] Nemora aptabant sepulcris ut in amoenitate animae forent post vitam: Serv., A. v, 760. In lucis habitabant manes piorum: iii, 302; cf. ad i, 441; vi, 673. “My grave is in a grove, the pleasant haunt of birds,” says a dead man ὄφρα καὶ εἰν Ἄϊδι τερπνὸν ἔχοιμι τόπον, Epigr. Gr. 546, 5–14.
[74] Cf. the ins. from Keos, SIG. 877, 8–9. Eur. IT. 633 ff.: ξανθῷ τ’ ἐλαίῳ σῶμα σὸν κατασβέσω, καὶ . . . γάνος ξουθῆς μελίσσης ἐς πυρὰν βαλῶ.
[75] ἐναγίζειν δὲ βοῦν οὐκ εἴασεν, Plu., Sol. 21.
[76] προσφαγίῳ (at the funeral) χρῆσθαι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, SIG. 877, 13. In general, however, the sacrifice of animals at the graves of private individuals gradually became rarer and rarer: see Stengel, Chthon. u. Todt. 430 f.
[77] Cf. esp. the ins. from Keos, l. 15 ff., 30. The ἐγχυτρίστριαι employed in old Athenian usage, [Pl.] Min. 315 C, seem to have been women who caught the blood of the sacrificed animals in bowls and purified the μιαινόμενοι with it. The name itself suggests it; to this effect is one among several other, clearly mistaken, explanations given by the Schol. to Min., loc. cit. (differently Sch. Ar., Vesp. 289).
[78] περὶ τὰ πένθη . . . ὁμοπαθείᾳ τοῦ κεκμηκότος κολοβοῦμεν ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς τῇ τε κουρᾷ τῶν τριχῶν καὶ τῇ τῶν στεφάνων ἀφαιρέσει, Arist. fr. 108 (101) Rose.
[79] περίδειπνον. This is implied as universally occurring by Aen. Tact. 10, 5. This meal shared by the relatives (who alone are invited: Dem. 43, 62) must be meant by Heraklid., Pol. 30, 2, παρὰ τοῖς Λόκροις ὀδύρεσθαι οὐκ ἔστιν ἐπὶ τοῖς τελευτήσασιν, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὰν ἐκκομίσωσιν εὐωχοῦνται.
[80] ἡ ὑποδοχὴ γίγνεται ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀποθανόντος, Artemid. 5, 82, p. 271, 10 H.
[81] Cic., Lg. ii, 63 (cf. λέγειν ἐπιδέξια ἐπὶ τεθνηκότι, Anaxandr. ap. Ath. 464 A.). On the other [195] hand, mentiri nefas erat. And yet εἰώθεσαν οἱ παλαιοὶ ἐν τοῖς περιδείπνοις τὸν τελευτηκότα ἐπαινεῖν, καὶ εἰ φαῦλος ἦν, Zenob. v, 28, and other Paroemiogr.—Besides this the lamentation for the dead may have been renewed at the various commemorations of the dead; the funeral regulation of the Labyadai at Delphi forbids expressly (not the festival but) the funeral dirge on such occasions: l. 46 ff. μηδὲ τᾷ ὑστεραίᾳ (after the burial, on which day the περίδειπνον was held) μηδὲ ἐν ταῖς δεκάταις μηδ’ ἐν τοῖς ἐνιαυτοῖ[ς] (we should expect rather ἐν τ. ἐνιαυτίοις, cf. [nn. 88]–92 of this chap.) μήτ’ οἰμώζεν μήτ’ ὀτοτύζεν.
[82] These meals given to the dead took place at the grave itself. Ar., Lys. 612 f. ἥξει σοι . . .; Is. 8, 39, τὰ ἔνατα ἐπήνεγκα.
[83] The τρίτα and ἔνατα, at any rate, were held on the third and ninth days after the funeral, and not after the day of death. It is true the references to these sacrifices in Ar., Lys. 612 ff., Is., etc., do not make this very clear. But if the τρίτα had taken place on the third day after death it would have coincided with the ἐκφορά itself, which is against all the evidence. Further, the Roman novemdiale, which was clearly modelled on Greek custom, also occurred on the ninth day after the burial, acc. to the unequivocal testimony of Porph. on Hor., Epod. xvii, 48 (nona die qua sepultus est). This is also deducible from Vg., A. v, 46 ff., and 105; cf. also Ap., M. ix, 31.
[84] That this was the object of the Novemdialia festival at Rome is shown clearly enough by the evidence; that the same was true of Greece is at least highly probable; cf. K. O. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 143 [120 E.T.]. Leist, Graecoitalische Rechts., p. 34.—Nine is evidently a round number, esp. in Homer; i.e. the division of periods of time into groups of nine was in antiquity a very common and familiar practice. Cf. now, Kaegi, Die Neunzahl bei den Ostariern, Phil. Abh. f. Schweitzer-Sidler, 50 ff. Mourning customs were really intended to ward off maleficent action on the part of the dead. They lasted as a rule as long as the return of the soul of the dead was to be feared (esp. so in India: see Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, p. 589), and acc. to ancient belief the soul can return once more on the ninth day after death. See below, chap. xiv, ii, [n. 154].
[85] A χρόνος πένθους of eleven days, the mourning concluded with a sacrifice to Demeter: Plu., Lyc. 27; cf. Hdt. vi, 58 fin. The Labyadai at Delphi celebrate the tenth day after the funeral as a feast of the dead; see above, [n. 81] of this chapter. This mourning period is not otherwise demonstrable for Greece (SIG. 633, 5, is different), but it is met with again among the Indians and Persians (cf. Kaegi, p. 5, 11), and may be primitive.
[86] Lex. Rh., in AB. 268, 19 ff.; Phot. a little differently: καθέδρα· τῇ τριακοστῇ (πρώτῃ Phot.: Α instead of Λ) ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ ἀποθανόντος οἱ προσήκοντες συνελθόντες κοινῇ ἐδειπνοῦν ἐπὶ τῷ ἀποθανόντι—καὶ τοῦτο καθέδρα ἐκαλεῖτο (Phot. adds: ὅτι καθεζόμενοι ἐδείπνουν καὶ τὰ νομιζόμενα ἐπλήρουν·) ἦσαν δὲ καθέδραι τέσσαρες (the last clause is absent from Phot.) It was a meal shared by the relatives of the dead in honour of the dead and held “on the thirtieth day”; possibly nothing more nor less than the oft-mentioned τριακάδες. The guests eat their food sitting after the old custom prevailing in Homeric times and always observed by women; as applied to men it survived in Crete only, see Müller, Dorians, ii, 284. Perhaps this primitive attitude preserved in cultus is what we see in the Spartan sculptured reliefs representing “feasts of the dead” where the figures are seated. There were four such καθέδραι, i.e. the period of mourning extended over four months: thus it was the law in Gambreion (SIG. 879, 11 ff.) that [196] mourning might last at the most three months, or in the case of women four. We often hear of monthly repetitions of the feasts of the dead: monthly celebration of the εἰκάδες for Epicurus in acc. with his will, D.L. x, 18; cf. Cic., Fin. ii, 101; Plin. 35, 5; κατὰ μῆνα sacrifice to the deified Ptolemies, CIG. 4697, 48. (In India, too, the sacrifices to the dead on the thirtieth of the month were several times repeated: Kaegi, 7; 11.)
[87] The Lexicographers, Harp., Phot., etc. (AB. 308, 5, is ambiguous, too), speak of the τριακάς in a way that makes it hard to see whether they mean the traditional sacrifice of the dead taking place regularly on the thirtieth day of the month, or a special offering on the thirtieth day after burial or after the day of death (ἡ τριακοστὴ ἡμέρα διὰ τοῦ θανάτου Harp., Phot. μετὰ θάνατον is the correction of Schömann on Is., p. 219, but διὰ θανάτου is formed, not quite correctly, on the analogy of διὰ χρόνου, διὰ μέσου [even διὰ προγόνων “since the time of our forefathers”, Polyb. 21, 21, 4], and must mean the same thing, viz. “after death”). But in Lys. 1, 14, we have the idea clearly expressed that the period of mourning should last till the thirtieth day (see Becker, Char.2 3, 117 E.T.3, p. 398), and in this case it is natural to suppose that the τριακάδες corresponding with the τρίτα and ἔνατα, took place on the thirtieth day after burial. So, too, the ins. from Keos, SIG. 877, 21, ἐπὶ τῷ θανόντι τριηκόστια μὴ ποιεῖν. For Argos see Plu., Q. Gr. 24, p. 296 F. It is evident that the τριακάδες were not so firmly established in Athens (at least in the fourth century) as the τρίτα and ἔνατα: e.g. Isaeus generally only refers to these last as the indispensable νομιζόμενα: 2, 36–7; 8, 39. It appears also that it is wrong to regard the τριακάδες as otherwise exactly on a footing with the τρ. and ἔνατα, as is generally done. The last-mentioned pair were sacrifices to the dead, the τριακάδες seems to have been a commemorative banquet of the living.—These fixed periods of mourning like so much else in the cult of the dead may have been handed down by tradition from a very early time. The third, ninth (or tenth), and thirtieth days after the funeral marked stages in the gradually diminishing “uncleanness” of the relatives of the dead, and this existed, it appears, already in “Indo-Germanic” times. Until the ninth day the relatives were still in contact with the departed and were consequently “unclean”; the thirtieth day puts an end to this, and is a memorial festival (though often repeated); cf. Kaegi, pp. 5, 10, 12 (of the separate edition); Oldenberg, 578. In Christian usage, sanctioned by the church, the third, ninth, and fortieth days after death or after burial were very early observed as memorial days (sometimes third, seventh, thirtieth; cf. Rochholz, D. Gl. u. Brauch, i, 203), and survive in some cases to the present day: see Ac. Soc. ph. Lips. v, 304 f.
[88] τὰ νεκύσια τῇ τριακάδι ἄγεται: Plu., Prov. Alex. viii, p. 6, 10 Crus. (App. prov. Vat. in Schneidewin’s Crit. App. to Diogen. viii, 39). There was a festival kept by servants in honour of their dead masters (ἀλλαθεάδες, GDI. 1731, 10; 1775, 29; 1796, 6) twice monthly, at the νουμηνία and on the seventh: GDI. 1801, 6–7 Delphi. The last three days of the month are at Athens sacred to the inhabitants of the lower world and therefore ἀποφράδες: EM. 131, 13 f.; E. Gud. 70, 3 ff.; cf. Lys., fr. 53. On these days banquets were prepared, at the crossroads, etc., for Hekate (acc. to Ath. 325 A), for Hekate καὶ τοῖς ἀποτροπαίοις (Plu., Symp. 7, 6, p. 709 A). The souls of the dead were then not forgotten. Sch. Pl., Lg. vii, 800 D, ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι ἐν αἷς τοῖς κατοιχομένοις χοὰς ἐπιφέρουσιν. [197]
[89] The son ἐναγίζει καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν to his dead father, Is. 2, 46. This sacrifice to the dead, celebrated once every year (θυσία ἐπέτειος offered by a παῖς πατρί), is the festival of the Γενέσια, in vogue acc. to Hdt. iv, 26, among the Greeks, everywhere as it appears. As the name shows this festival fell on the birthday of the honoured ancestor as it recurred (not on the day of his death as Amm. pp. 34–5 Valck. incorrectly says); cf. Schol. Pl., Alc. i, 121 C. So Epicurus in his will (D.L. x, 18) provides for a yearly celebration of his birthday. (Similar foundation, CIG. 3417.) The Koans ἐναγίζουσι to Hippokrates every year on the 27th Agrianos as his birthday: Soran., V.Hp., p. 450, 13–14 West. Hero-festivals, too, fall on the birthday of the Hero: Plu., Arat. 53. Gods have their feast-days and their birthdays combined; thus Hermes has his on the 4th of the month, Artemis on the 6th, Apollo on the 7th, and so on. These are birthday festivals repeated every month. In the second century at Sestos, following such precedents, there was held τὰ γενέθλια τοῦ βασιλέως (one of the deified Attalids) καθ’ ἕκαστον μῆνα: SIG.1 246, 36. Celebration of the ἔμμηνος γενέσιος of the ruling Emperor: Ins. Perg. ii, 374 B, 14. Even in later times in imitation of heathen usage the Kephallenians still honour Epiphanes, son of Karpokrates, κατὰ νουμηνίαν, γενέθλιον ἀποθέωσιν, Clem. Al., Str. iii, p. 511 P.
[90] This is the public festival meant by Phryn., p. 103 Lob. = 83, p. 184 Ruth., when, to distinguish it from the birthday celebrations of living persons, γενέθλια (which did not become common till later), he calls the Γενέσια, Ἀθήνησιν ἑορτή [πένθιμος add. Meursius; cf. Hesych. γενέσια; AB. 231, 19]. The Antiatticista, in his rather absurd polemic against Phryn. (p. 86, 20 ff.), adds the still clearer statement (taken from Solon’s ἄξονες and Philochoros) that the ἑορτὴ δημοτελής of the Γενέσια at Athens was held on the 5th Boedromion. There is not the slightest reason for doubting the correctness of this statement (as many have done). In Rome, too, besides the many moveable parentalia of the families there was an official and public Parentalia held every year (in Feb.). Similarly in ancient India: Oldenberg, 550, 3.
[91] The Νεμέσεια is mentioned by Dem. 41, 11. The context suggests a rite performed by a daughter in honour of her dead father. It is a quite certainly correct conjecture (μήποτε—) of the Lexicog. that the Nemeseia may be a festival of the dead (see Harp. s.v. AB. 282, 32: both glosses combined in Phot. Suid. νεμέσια). It is clear, however, that they knew nothing further about it. Mommsen declares (Heort. 209) the Nemeseia to have been “without doubt” identical with the Γενέσια. I see no reason at all for supposing so.—The name νεμέσεια characterizes it as a festival dedicated to the “wrath” of the dead, to the νέμεσις τῶν θανόντων, Soph., El. 792; φθιμένων ὠκυτάτη νέμεσις, Epigr. Gr. 119; cf. 195—this easily becomes a personified Νέμεσις: ἔστι γὰρ ἐν φθιμένοις Νέμεσις μέγα, Epigr. Gr. 367, 9. The cult of the dead, like the cult of the underworld in general, is always apotropaic in character (placantur sacrificiis ne noceant, Serv., A. iii, 63): the Nemeseia must then have been apotropaic in intention too.
[92] At Apollonia in Chalcidice there was a yearly custom to τὰ νόμιμα συντελεῖν τοῖς τελευτήσασιν in early times in Elaphebolion, later in Anthesterion: Hegesand. ap. Ath. 334 F.—ἐνιαύσια, a yearly festival of the dead (but perhaps rather to be taken as sacra privata) in Keos: SIG. 878.—There is a month called Νεκύσιος in Knossos (and common to the whole of Crete acc. to the Ἡμερολόγιον Flor. [Corsini, Fast. Att. ii, 428]). It took its name from a feast of the dead (νεκύσια is mentioned along with περίδειπνα, as a regular expression by Artemid. [198] iv, 81, p. 249, 9 H.): for this see “Treaties of Kretan cities”, BCH. 1879, 294, l. 56 f.—There was a month Ἀγριώνιος or Ἀγριάνιος in Boeotia and even in Byzantium, Kalymna, Kos, Rhodos: Hesych. Ἀγριάνια· νεκύσια παρὰ Ἀργείοις καὶ ἀγῶνες ἐν Θήβαις (as to the Agon at the A. see the ins. from Thebes, Ath. Mitt. vii, 349).—ἐτελεῖτο δὲ καὶ θυσία τοῖς νεκροῖς ἐν Κορίνθῳ, δι’ ἣν τῆς πόλεως ἐν τοῖς μνήμασιν οὔσης ἐπέρχεται ὁ Ἀλήτης κτλ. Sch. Pi. N. vii, 155.
[93] Hesych. μιαραὶ ἡμέραι. Phot. μιαρὰ ἡμέρα.
[94] συγκλεισθῆναι τὰ ἱερὰ during the Choes: Phanodem. ap. Ath. 437 C.
[95] Phot. μιαρὰ ἡμέρα· ἐν τοῖς Χουσὶν Ἀνθεστηριῶνος μηνός, ἐν ᾧ (ἐν οἷς?) δοκοῦσιν αἱ ψυχαὶ τῶν τελευτησάντων ἀνιέναι, ῥάμνον ἕωθεν ἐμασῶντο, καὶ πίττῃ τὰς θύρας ἔχριον. Ῥάμνος· φυτόν, ὃ ἐν τοῖς Χουσὶν ὡς ἀλεξιφάρμακον ἐμασῶντο ἕωθεν· καὶ πίττῃ ἐχρίοντο τὰ σώματα (leg. δώματα)· ἀμίαντος γὰρ αὕτη· διὸ καὶ ἐν ταῖς γενέσεσι τῶν παιδίων χρίουσι τὰς οἰκίας εἰς ἀπέλασιν τῶν δαιμόνων.—I do not recollect having read elsewhere of pitch as a protection against malevolent spirits or of its use in Greek superstitious practices. (The flame and smoke of burning pitch—and of ἄσφαλτος: Diph. fr. 126 [ii, p. 577 K.] ap. Clem. Al. Str. 7, 4, 26, p. 844 P.—as of sulphur, belong to the region of magic and are καθαρμοί: but that is a different matter.—τὰ καθάρσια· ταῦτα δέ ἐστι δᾷδες καὶ θεῖον καὶ ἄσφαλτος, Zos. ii, 5, p. 67, 19 Bk.). Better known is the magic protective power of the ῥάμνος. It is of use against φάρμακα and φαντάσματα, and is therefore hung up on the doors ἐν τοῖς ἐναγίσμασι: Sch. Nic., Th. 860 (Euphorion and Sophnon had also referred to this superstition). Cf. Anon., de Vir. Herb. 9–13, 20 ff., and the Scholia (p. 486, ed. Haupt., Opusc. 2); also Dioscorides i, 119 fin. (ῥάμνος also frightens away poisonous beasts: Diosc. iii, 12. In the same way marjoram and scilla are equally available against daimones and ἰοβόλα.) At Rome the hawthorn (spina alba) is specially known for these purificatory properties. Ovid, F. vi, 129 (at a wedding procession a torch made of a branch of the spina alba is used [Fest. 245a, 3 Mü.], and this is purgationis causa: Varro ap. Charis., p. 144, 22 K.).—At the Choes the ῥάμνος (i.e. twigs or leaves of it) is chewed: this is in order that its powers may be absorbed into the chewer’s own body. The Superstitious man (like the Pythia) puts laurel leaves in his mouth καὶ οὕτω τὴν ἡμέραν περιπατεῖ: also at the Choes? Thphr., Ch. 16. The laurel in addition to its other marvellous properties can also drive off spirits: ἔνθα ἂν ᾗ δάφνη, ἐκποδὼν δαίμονες, Gp. 11, 2, 5–7. Lyd., Mens. 4, 4, p. 68, 9 Wü.
[96] Sch. Ar., Ach. 961, p. 26, 8 ff. Dübn.—At the νεκρῶν δεῖπνα the souls of the departed members of the family are summoned by the προσήκοντες to come and take their share (with the single exception of those who have hanged themselves): Artemid. i, 4, p. 11, 10 f. H. (cf. what is said of the νεκύσια in Bithynia by Arr. ap. Eust., ι 65, p. 1615). The same thing must have happened at the Anthesteria.
[97] Worshippers offered the χύτραν πανσπερμίας to Hermes ἱλασκόμενοι τὸν Ἑρμῆν καὶ περὶ τῶν ἀποθανόντων, Sch. Ar., Ach. 1076 (Didymus from Theopomp.)—τοὺς τότε παραγενομένους (read περιγινομένους, viz. from the Flood) ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀποθανόντων ἱλάσασθαι τὸν Ἑρμῆν, Sch. Ar., Ran. 218 (after Theop.). The offering was merely placed ready for the recipients (not sent up to heaven in flames and smoke) as was customary at the Theoxenia (esp. those in honour of chthonic deities) and in offerings made to Heroes. The Ἑκάτης δεῖπνα were similar, and particularly the offerings to the Erinyes: τὰ πεμπόμενα αὐταῖς ἱερὰ πόπανα καὶ γάλα ἐν ἄγγεσι κεραμείοις, Sch. Aeschin. i, 188. [199]
[98] EM. 774, 56: Ὑδροφόρια· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνησι πένθιμος (so far Hesych. too, s.v.) ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐν τῷ κατακλυσμῷ ἀπολομένοις. The feast of Chytrai was also supposed to have been a commemoration of Deucalion’s Flood. The flood was said to have subsided finally through a cleft in the earth in the Temple of Γῆ Ὀλυμπία: Paus. 1, 18, 7. Pausanias adds, ἐσβάλλουσιν ἐς αὐτὸ (the chasm) ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος ἄλφιτα πυρῶν μέλιτι μάξαντες. It is at least natural, with Preller, Dem. u. Pers. 229, n., to see in the Hydrophoria a part of which is described by Pausanias, a festival related to the Chytrai. Connexion of the dead with Γῆ in the Γενέσια too: Hesych. s.v.—Ὑδροφόρια a feast of Apollo at Aegina: Sch. Pi., N. v, 81 (fanciful remarks thereon by K. O. Müller, in Aesch. Eum., p. 141 [116 E.T.]).
[99] Ovid’s account of the Lemuria at Rome, F. v, shows the closest resemblances to the Athen. customs. The spirits are finally driven out: Manes exite paterni! (443). The same happens in the festivals of the dead in many places: esp. in India, Oldenberg, 553; cf. also the Esthonian customs: Grimm, p. 1844, n. 42. A parallel from ancient Prussia is given (after Joh. Meletius, 1551) by Ch. Hartknoch, in Alt- u. Neues Preussen, 1684, pp. 187–8. There on the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth day after the funeral a banquet of the relatives of the dead was held. The souls of the dead were invited and (with other souls as well) entertained. “When the feasting was ended the priest rose from the table and swept out the house, driving forth the souls of the dead as though he were driving out fleas, saying the while: ‘Ye have eaten and drunk, O ye Blessed Ones, depart hence! depart hence!’” At the close of the lantern-feast to the dead in Nagasaki (Japan) when the entertainment of the souls was over a great noise was made all over the house “so that no single soul should remain behind and haunt the place—they must be driven out without mercy”: Preuss. Exped. nach Ostasien, ii, 22. Other examples of the expulsion of souls given in Tylor, ii, 199. The ghosts were thought of in a thoroughly materialistic fashion, and driven out by waving clubs in the air, swinging torches, etc., as in the case of the ξενικοὶ θεοί of the Kaunians: Hdt. i, 172. Compare with this the prayers addressed to Herakles in the Orphic Hymns (reproducing ancient superstitions as frequently): ἐλθὲ μάκαρ . . . ἐξέλασον δὲ κακὰς ἄτας, κλάδον ἐν χερὶ πάλλων, πτηνοῖς τ’ ἰοβόλοις κῆρας χαλεπὰς ἀπόπεμπε (12, 15–16). It will be clear how near such personified ἆται and κῆρες are to the angry “souls”, from which in fact they have arisen; cf. besides, Orph., H. 11, 23; 14, 14; 36, 16; 71, 11.—κῆρας ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι, Plu., Lys. 17.
[100] θύραζε Κῆρες, οὐκ ἔτ’ Ἀνθεστήρια. This is the correct wording of the formula; Κᾶρες the form common later and explained with mistaken ingenuity. Photius has it right and explains, ὡς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς Ἀνθεστηρίους τῶν ψυχῶν περιερχομένων.—Κῆρες—is clearly a most primitive equivalent for ψυχαί which has become almost completely obscured in Homer, though it dimly appears in Β 302, ξ 207, where the Κῆρες are spoken of as those who carry away other ψυχαί to Hades. Aeschylus knew it (presumably from old Attic speech) and simply substituted ψυχαί for the Keres in the fate-weighing scene in Homer, thus turning the Kerostasia into a Ψυχοστασία (to the surprise of the Schol. A, Θ 70; A.B. X 209). See O. Crusius in Ersch-Gruber, “Keren,” 2, 35, 265–7 [Aesch. fr. 279 Sidg.].
[101] Cf. the collections in Pottier, Les lécythes blancs attiques à représ. funér., p. 57, 70 ff.
[102] Though not all of them, some at any rate of the scenes in which [200] lyre-playing at a grave is represented on a lekythos are to be taken as implying that the living provide music for the entertainment of the dead: see Furtwängler on the Sammlung Saburoff. i, Pl. lx.
[103] See Benndorf, Sicil. u. unterital. Vasenb., p. 33.
[104] How the mode of conceiving the spiritual activity of the dead and consequently the cult of the dead was at first more solemn and awestruck and completely on a par with the cult of the χθόνιοι; how in the course of time the relations of the living to the departed became more familiar and the cult of the dead correspondingly less awe-inspiring, more piously protective in character than apotropaic—all this is set out in more detail by P. Stengel, Chthonisch. u. Todtencult [Festschrift für Friedländer], p. 414 ff.
[105] The reliefs represent a man enthroned, sometimes alone, sometimes with a woman beside him, stretching out a kantharos to receive the offerings. As a rule he is approached by a group of worshippers represented on a smaller scale. The earliest examples of these reliefs were found in Sparta and go back to the sixth century. Since the investigations of Milchhöfer especially, they are now generally recognised as representing the family worship of the dead. They are the forerunners of the representations of similar food-offerings in which (following later custom) the Hero is lying on a kline and receiving his worshippers. (That this class of reliefs representing “banquets of the dead” was also sacrificial in character is proved clearly by the presence of the worshippers who in many cases lead sacrificial victims. H. v. Fritze in Ath. Mitt. ’96, p. 347 ff., supposes that they are intended to represent not sacrifices but the συμπόσιον which the dead person is to enjoy in the after life. But he can only account for the presence of the worshippers in such a forced and unnatural way [p. 356 ff.], that this alone seems to refute his theory. πυραμίδες and incense among the offerings made do not by any means contradict its nature as a sacrifice to the dead.) The same is the meaning of the reliefs found esp. in Boeotia in which the person worshipped is seated on a horse, or leading a horse, and accepting offerings (summary by Wolters, Archäol. Zeitung, 1882, p. 299 ff.; cf. also Gardner, JHS. 1884, pp. 107–42; Furtwängler, Samml. Sab. i, p. 23). The worshippers bring pomegranates, a cock (e.g. Ath. Mitt. ii, Pl. 20–2), a pig (cock and pig on Theban relief: A. Mitt. iii, 377; pig on Boeotian rel.: A. Mitt. iv, Pl. 17, 2), a ram (rel. from Patras: A. Mitt. iv, 125 f.; cf. the ram’s head on a grave monument from the neighbourhood of Argos, A. Mitt. viii, 141). All these gifts are of the kind proper to the underworld. We know the pomegranate as food of the χθόνιοι from the Hymn to Demeter; the pig and ram are the main constituents of sacrifice made to the χθόνιοι and burnt in cathartic or hilastic (propitiatory) ceremonial. In such cases the cock, of course, does not appear because it was sacred to Helios and Selene (cf. D.L. viii, 34; Iamb., VP. 84), but because it was a sacrificial animal of the χθόνιοι (and of Asklepios) and for the same reason much used in necromancy, spirit-raising, and magic [Dieterich, Pap. mag. 185, 3]. As such it was forbidden food to the Mystai of Demeter at Eleusis: Porph., Abs. 4, 16, p. 255, 5 N. Sch. Luc., D. Me. 7, 4, p. 280, 23 Rabe—Anyone who partakes of the food of the underworld spirits is forfeit to them. On their side the reclining or enthroned spirits of the dead on these reliefs are brought into conjunction with a snake (A. Mitt. ii, Pl. 20–2; viii, Pl. 18, 1, etc.), a dog, or a horse (sometimes a horse’s head only occurs). The snake is the well-known symbol of the Hero: the [201] dog and the horse certainly do not represent victims as Gardner, p. 131, thinks—their real meaning has not yet been made out. The horse occurs sometimes by the side of women and therefore can hardly symbolize a knight’s status. I regard it as also a symbol of the departed as now having entered the spirit-world, like the snake too (Grimm understands it differently: p. 841 f., 844). I can form no decided opinion as to the dog: it is not likely to be mere genre—any more than anything else in these sculptures.
[106] The χοαί, ἅπερ νεκροῖσι μειλικτήρια, of wine, honey, water, or oil, which are offered in Tragedy by children at the grave of a father—A. Pers. 609 ff.; Ch. 84 ff.; E., IT. 159 ff.—are modelled upon the food offerings to the dead in real life. Honey and water (μελίκρατον) were always the chief ingredients: cf. Stengel, Philolog. 39, 378 ff.; Jahr. f. Phil. 1887, p. 653. The ritual at the pouring of an ἀπόνιμμα—essentially a cathartic libation-sacrifice but also offered εἰς τιμὴν τοῖς νεκροῖς is described by Kleidemos ἐν τῷ Ἐξηγητικῷ (the quotation is not complete), Ath. 409 E f. (Striking similarities in ritual and language in Indian sacrifice to the dead: Oldenberg, Rel. d. Ved. 550. Something extremely primitive may be preserved in these uses.) The same is the meaning of the χθόνια λουτρὰ τοῖς νεκροῖς ἐπιφερόμενα, Zenob. vi, 45, etc. These things have nothing to do with the Ὑδροφόρια, as some have thought.
[107] The regular animal used as victim in ἐναγίσματα for the dead is a sheep; other animals occur less frequently. The black colour is general; the sacrifice was burnt completely: cf. the instances collected by Stengel, Ztschr. f. Gymnasi., 1880, p. 743 f., Jahrb. f. Phil. 1882, p. 322 f.; ’83, p. 375.—Phot. καυστόν· καρπωτὸν ὃ ἐναγίζεται τοῖς τετελευτηκόσιν (cf. Hesych. καυτόν).—The σέλινον (a plant sacred to the dead; see above, [n. 40]) probably served as food for the dead at the τρίτα and other banquets “of the dead”, and was not used as food for the living at the περίδειπνον; consequently it might never be used at the meals of the living: Plin. 20, 113, following Chrysippos and Dionysios. (In the mysteries of the Kabeiroi the ἀνακτοτελέσται had a special reason of their own for forbidding parsley αὐτόριζον ἐπὶ τραπέζης τιθέναι, Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 16 P.)
[108] The food offered is a meal for the dead: A., Ch. 483 ff. (cf. Luc., Luct. 9; Char. 22). The dead man is summoned to come and drink the offerings (ἐλθὲ δ’ ὡς πίῃς): E., Hec. 535 ff. It was the general opinion that ὁ νεκρὸς πίεται of the drink offerings (AP. xi, 8; Epigr. Gr. 646, 12), αἱ γὰρ χοαὶ παραψυχή τις εἰσεφέρετο τοῖς εἰδώλοις τῶν τετελευτηκότων κτλ. Lyd., Mens. 4, 31, p. 90 Wü.
[109] It feels when friends or enemies approach its grave: Is. 9, 4, 19.
[110] Sch. Ar., Av. 1490 (referring to the Τιτανόπανες of Myrtilos, a poet of the Old Comedy). Phot. κρείττονες (Hesych. κρείττονας) οἱ ἥρωες· δοκοῦσι δὲ κακωτικοὶ εἶναι· δι’ ὃ καὶ οἱ τὰ ἡρῷα παριόντες σιωπῶσιν. (ἥρωες and ἡρῷα here, in accordance with the usage common in later times, simply = τετελευτηκότες and μνήματα of the usual kind.) Since a Hero in the higher sense was buried there it was customary to pass in silence the monument, e.g., of Narkissos, ἥρως Σιγηλός: Str. 404 (so also the grove and chasm of Kolonos where the Erinyes dwell: S., OC. 130 ff.). The feeling underlying this is easy to understand, and the custom therefore is widespread: e.g. among West African negroes, Réville, Relig. des peuples non civil. i, 73. It is a German superstition (Grimm, p. 1811, n. 830). “Never call the dead by name or you may cry them up”.
[111] Pl., Phd. 81 CD. The ψυχή . . . ὥσπερ λέγεται περὶ τὰ μνήματά τε [202] καὶ τοὺς τάφους κυλινδομένη· περὶ ἃ δὴ καὶ ὤφθη ἄττα ψυχῶν σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα, κτλ.
[112] See O. Jahn, Archäol. Beitr. 128 ff.; Benndorf, Griech. u. sicil. Vasenb., p. 33 f., p. 65 (on Pl. 14, 32); also Pottier, Lécythes blancs, p. 65, 2 (who proposes a doubtful theory of a supposed Éros funèbre, p. 76 ff.).
[113] We frequently on vases see the occupant of a grave represented in the form of a snake at the foot of his tomb, etc.; e.g. on the Prothesis vase, Monum. d. Instit. viii, 4, 5, and often, see Luckenbach, Jahrb. f. Phil., Suppl. ii, 500.—We have already met with snakes as a favourite form of incarnation chosen by χθόνιοι of all kinds, deities of the underworld, Heroes, and the ordinary dead, and we shall frequently meet with the same thing again. Here we need only refer to Photius ἥρως ποικίλος—διὰ τὸ τοὺς ὄφεις ποικίλους ὄντας ἥρωας καλεῖσθαι.
[114] What falls to the ground belongs to the ἥρωες (= souls of the dead): Ar. Ἥρωες fr. 305 H. and G. τοῖς τετελευτηκόσι τῶν φίλων ἀπένεμον τὰ πίπτοντα τῆς τροφῆς ἀπὸ τῶν τραπεζῶν (alluded to by Eur. in the Belleroph. [Stheneb. fr. 667 Din.]), ap. Ath. 427 E. This is the origin of the Pythagorean σύμβολον—as usual founded on ancient belief about the soul—τὰ πεσόντα ἀπὸ τραπεζῆς μὴ ἀναιρεῖσθαι, D.L. viii, 34. Suid. Πυθαγόρα τὰ σύμβολα. This superstition is also the reason for the νόμος said to have been current in Kroton, τὸ πεσὸν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν κωλύων ἀναιρεῖσθαι, Iamb., VP. 126. Similar belief and custom in Rome: Plin. 28, 27. Among the ancient Prussians it was the custom not to pick up the fragments of food that fell to the ground at meal times, but to leave them for the “poor” souls that have no blood-relations or friends left behind in the world to look after them; see Chr. Hartknoch, Alt- u. Neues Preussen, p. 188. Similar customs elsewhere: Spencer, Princ. of Sociol. i, 281.
[115] Solonian law: D. 20, 104; 40, 49. Plu., Sol. 21, Σόλωνος ὁ κωλύων νόμος τὸν τεθνηκότα κακῶς ἀγορεύειν. καὶ γὰρ ὅσιον τοὺς μεθεστηκότας ἱεροὺς νομίζειν. This reminds us of the words of Arist., Eudem. fr. 37 [44] given in Plu., C. Apoll. 27, p. 115 B, τὸ ψεύσασθαί τι κατὰ τῶν τετελευκηκότων καὶ τὸ βλασφημεῖν οὐχ ὅσιον ὡς κατὰ βελτιόνων καὶ κρειττόνων ἤδη γεγονότων (Chilon ap. Stob., Fl. 125, 15 M.: τὸν τετελευκηκότα μὴ κακολόγει ἀλλὰ μακάριζε). A very extreme form of outrage is ψεύσασθαι κατὰ τοῦ τελευτήσαντος: Is. 9, 6; 23; 26. (The κακολόγος is particularly liable to κακὰ εἰπεῖν περὶ τῶν τετελευτηκότων, Thphr., Char. 28.) The heir of the dead man has the duty of carrying out the cult of the dead man’s soul, and this includes the legal prosecution of slanderers of the dead: see Meier and Schömann, Att. Process2, p. 630.
[116] Ar., Tagenist. fr. 485, 12, says of the dead, καὶ θύομέν γ’ αὐτοῖσι τοῖς ἐναγίσμασιν, ὥσπερ θεοῖσιν κτλ.
[117] κρείττονες Hesych. Phot. s.v. Arist. ap. Plu., C. Apoll. 27, p. 115 C.
[118] ἵλεως ἔχειν (τοὺς τελευτήσαντας): Pl., Rp. 427 B.
[119] That the ἥρωες δυσόργητοι καὶ χαλεποὶ τοῖς ἐμπελάζουσι γίγνονται (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490) applies equally to the “Heroes” properly so called—see above, chap. iv, [§ 11], the legends of the Hero Anagyros, the Hero of Temesa, etc.—and to those who gradually came to be called “Heroes” in later times by an extension of the term, viz. the souls of the dead in general—χαλεποὺς καὶ πλήκτας τοὺς ἥρωας νομίζουσι, καὶ μᾶλλον νύκτωρ ἢ μεθ’ ἡμέραν: Chamaileon ap. Ath. 461 C (and hence the precautions taken against nocturnal [203] apparitions: Ath. 149 C). Cf. Zenob. v, 60. Hesych. Phot. s. κρείττονες.—That the ἥρωες do, and are responsible for, evil only and never good (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490; Babr. 63) is a late belief; it does not apply either to Heroes or ordinary dead in the conceptions of earlier ages. Originally the “gods”, just as much as Heroes and the dead, shared in the violent and malignant nature of the unseen. This was later confined more and more to the lower classes of the κρείττονες and came to be attached to them so exclusively that it could in the end be regarded as a sufficient ground of distinction between them and the gods (as it certainly had not been to start with) that malice is excluded from the nature of the gods and benevolence on the contrary from that of Heroes and the dead.
[120] Ar., Tagenist. fr. 485, 13: καὶ χοάς γε χεόμενοι (to the dead) αἰτούμεθ’ αὐτοὺς τὰ καλὰ δεῦρ’ ἀνιέναι (intended as a παροιμία or at any rate imitated from a tragedian—apostrophe to a dead woman ἐκεῖ βλέπουσα, δεῦρ’ ἀνίει τἀγαθά, Sch. Ar., Ran. 1462—and reproduced in this passage by the interpolator of Aristoph.). This “sending-up blessings from below” is to be understood in the widest sense (cf. A., Pers. 222); but it is natural to be reminded by such a prayer to ἀνιέναι τἀγαθά of Demeter ἀνησιδώρα (Paus. 1, 31, 4; Plu., Smp. 9, 14, 4, p. 745 A), and of Γῆ ἀνησιδώρα. διὰ τὸ καρποὺς ἀνιέναι (Hesych.); S., OT. 269, εὔχομαι θεοὺς μήτ’ ἄροτον αὐτοῖς γῆς ἀνιέναι τινά.—That the dead who dwell beneath the ground were really expected to assist the growth of the soil we may learn especially from a very interesting statement in the Hippocratic work περὶ ἐνυπνίων (ii, p. 14 Kühn; vi, p. 658 Littré [π. διαίτης iv, 92]). If a person in his dream sees ἀποθανόντας dressed in white, offering something, that is a good omen: ἀπὸ γὰρ τῶν ἀποθανόντων αἱ τροφαὶ καὶ αὐξησιες καὶ σπέρματα γίνονται. There was a custom at Athens of strewing seeds of all kinds over the newly-made grave: Isigon., Mir. 67; Cic., Lg. ii, 63. The reason for this (evidently religious) is variously given (another, no more convincing, is suggested by K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 302 f.). It seems most natural to suppose that the seed of the earth is put under the protection of the souls of dead who have now themselves become spirits inhabiting the earth. (Note besides the entirely similar custom in ancient India, Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 582.)
[121] Electra in A., Ch. 486 ff., makes a vow to the soul of her father: κἀγὼ χοάς σοι τῆς ἐμῆς παγκληρίας οἴσω πατρῴων ἐκ δόμων γαμηλίους· πάντων δὲ πρῶτον τόνδε πρεσβεύσω τάφον.—As chthonic powers the Erinyes also send blessings on agriculture and the bringing-up of children. Rh. Mus. 50, 21. Prayer was also made to Γῆ by those who desired to have children.
[122] Φανόδημός φησιν ὅτι μόνοι Ἀθηναῖοι θύουσιν καὶ εὔχονται αὐτοῖς ὑπὲρ γενέσεως παίδων, ὅταν γαμεῖν μέλλωσιν, Phot. Suid. τριτοπάτορες.
[123] The form of the word itself shows that the τριτοπάτορες are simply πρόπαπποι. τριτοπάτωρ is the earliest ancestor, ὁ πάππου ἢ τήθης πατήρ (Arist. ap. Poll. 3, 17). Just as μητροπάτωρ is ὁ μητρὸς πατήρ and πατροπάτωρ ὁ πατρὸς πατήρ (Poll. 3, 16), προπατώρ the forefather, ψευδοπάτωρ = ψευδὴς πατήρ, ἐπιπάτωρ the stepfather (μητρομήτηρ = μητρὸς μήτηρ)—in the same way τριτοπάτωρ is the third forefather, the father of the πατροπάτωρ, i.e. the πρόπαππος. The τριτοπάτορες have an alternative form τριτοπάτρεῖς, Philoch. ap. Suidas τριτοπάτορες: SIG. 443; Leg. Sacr. i, p. 49, l. 32, 52: in Orphic verse this form alone, and not τριτοπάτορες, could be used: see Lobeck, Agl. 764. They were in fact the τρίτοι πατέρες (just as [204] the τριτέγγονοι are the τρίτοι ἔγγονοι, the ἔγγονοι of the third generation). But the “third forefathers” are in fact the first ancestors (Lobeck, 763 f.), οἱ προπάτορες (Hesych.), οἱ πρῶτοι ἀρχηγέται (AB. 307, 16)—the ancestors of the individual first of all, his bodily γονεῖς (the series of whom was not generally counted beyond the πρόπαππος—Is. 8, 32—i.e. the τριτοπάτωρ), and then the “ancestors” of the human race in general (acc. to the explanation of Philoch. ap. Phot. Suid. τριτοπ.; cf. Welcker, Götterl. iii, 73).—We cannot do more than refer here to the completely analogous ideas of the ancient Indians about the “three-fathers”: the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, as the Sapinda-fathers beyond whom the line of ancestry was not traced (Kaegi, Neunzahl, pp. 5, 6).
[124] The Tritopatores are most distinctly referred to as ἄνεμοι: Demon ap. Phot. Suid. τριτοπ. cf. δεσπόται ἀνέμων Phot. τριτοπάτωρ; Tz. Lyc. 738. Orphic poetry made them θυρωροὺς καὶ φύλακας τῶν ἀνέμων. This is already a free interpretation; the Attic belief, expressed by Demon, knows nothing about this. It can only have been learned invention that limited their number to three (as in the case of the originally unlimited number of Horai, Erinyes, etc.), and gave them definite names (Amalkeides, etc., Orph. fr. 240, Ab.) or identified them with the three Hekatoncheires (Kleidemos in the Ἐξηγ.). The genuine and ancient belief about them can still be discerned through all the confusion of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, and according to this the τριτοπάτορες were the souls of ancestors who were also wind-spirits. People prayed for children to these spirits: and Lobeck, Agl. 755 ff., is right in connecting with this custom the Orphic doctrine that the soul of man comes into him from without with the wind. Even this, however, is only a speculative embellishment of the popular belief about the Tritopatores (which the Orphics cannot, as Welcker thinks, Götterl. iii, 71, have “invented”: they only explained it after their fashion and consequently must have found it already existing). When we have stripped off all speculative accretions we find the Tritopatores to have been the souls of ancestors who have become wind-spirits and travel in the wind like other ψυχαί (whose name even is derived from the breath of the wind). From these as from real πνοιαὶ ζῳογόνοι their descendants hope for aid where the entry into life of a new ψυχή is concerned. It is not hard to understand the connexion between souls and wind-spirits; it is merely that such conceptions were rare among the Greeks and for that reason these isolated wind-spirits surviving in popular belief were turned into individual daimones—the Tritopatores no less than the Harpies (see Rh. Mus. 50, 3 ff.).
[125] The words of Orestes in A., Ch. 483, give very naive expression to the belief. He calls to the soul of his father: οὕτω (if thou sendest me aid) γὰρ ἄν σοι δαῖτες ἔννομοι βροτῶν κτιζοίατ’· εἰ δὲ μή, παρ’ εὐδείπνοις ἔσει ἄτιμος ἐμπύροισι κνισωτοῖς χθονός. Thus we see that the belief ridiculed by Luc., Luct. 9, was true of earlier times as well: τρέφονται δὲ ἄρα (the dead) ταῖς παρ’ ἡμῖν χοαῖς καὶ τοῖς καθαγιζομένοις ἐπὶ τῶν τάφων· ὡς εἴ τῳ μὴ εἴη καταλελειμμένος ὑπὲρ γῆς φίλος ἢ συγγενής, ἄσιτος οὗτος νεκρὸς καὶ λιμώττων ἐν αὐτοῖς πολιτεύεται.
[126] Epicurus devotes by will certain definite πρόσοδοι to the yearly offering of ἐναγίσματα to his parents, his brothers, and himself: D.L. x, 18.—To the end of the third century belongs the “Testament of Epikteta”, i.e. the inscription recording the foundation by Epikteta (who came from Thera as we know now for certain: Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1894, p. 142) of a three-day sacrificial feast to be performed every year for [205] the Muses and “the Heroes”, i.e. for her husband, herself, and her sons; and the institution for this special purpose of a κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνδρείου τῶν συγγενῶν (together with women of the family). The inscr. gives also the rules of this sacrificial society (Michel n. 1001; CIG. 2448).—The offerings to the dead in this case (vi, 6 ff.) consist of a ἱερεῖον (i.e. a sheep) and ἱερά, especially ἐλλύται of five choinikes of wheaten flour and a stater of dry cheese (ἐλλ. are a kind of sacrificial cake specially offered to the deities of the lower world, as for ex. to Trophonios at Lebadeia: GDI. 413 with n., p. 393), and in addition to these garlands are mentioned. The following are to be sacrificed: the customary parts of the victim, an ἐλλύτης, a loaf, a πάραξ (= βάραξ, βήρηξ: interchange of tenuis and media as frequently) and some ὀψάρια (i.e. small fishes: cf. the ἀποπυρίς for the dead, GDI. 3634 Kos). The rest was probably consumed by the religious society: these special portions the person offering the sacrifice, we are told, καρπωσεῖ, i.e. (he) shall offer them to the Heroes by burning them entire. Cf. Phot. καυστόν· καρπωτόν, ὃ ἐναγίζεται τοῖς τετελευτηκόσιν (καρπῶσαι, κάρπωμα, ὁλοκάρπωσις, etc., are frequent in the LXX) and Phot. ὁλοκαρπούμενον and ὁλοκαυτισμός. καρποῦν = ὁλοκαυτοῦν in the sacrificial calendar from Kos, GDI. 3636; cf. Stengel, Hermes, 27, 161 f.
[127] See Is. 1, 10.
[128] In manumission records it is sometimes definitely enjoined that the freed persons shall at the death of their masters θαψάντω καὶ τὰ ὥρια αὐτῶν ποιησάτωσαν: thus on the insc. from Phokis, SIG. 841. (Instructions of this kind as esp. frequent in the records of emancipation from Delphi: see Büchsenschütz, Bes. u. Erw., 178 Anm. 3–4.) τὰ ὥρια when applied to the dead (GDI. 1545–6; ὡραίων τυχεῖν E., Sup. 175) means the καθ’ ὥραν συντελούμενα ἱερά (Hesych. ὡραῖα; funeral ordinance of the Labyadai, l. 49 ff.: τὰς δ’ ἄλλας θοίνας κατ’ τὰν ὥραν ἀγαγέσθαι), i.e. the sacrifices to be celebrated periodically (ταῖς ἱκνουμέναις ἡμέραις, n. 138; cf. τελεταὶ ὥριαι, Pi., P. ix, 98 ff.). This doubtless means in particular the ἐνιαύσια ἱερά (cf. nn. [81], [89], [92] of this chap.). Garlanding of graves κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν ταῖς ὡρίοις (sc. ἁμέραις), GDI. 1775, 21; κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν ὡραῖα ἱερὰ ἀπετέλουν (to the Heroes), Pl., Cri. 116 C.
[129] The foll. are the expressions occurring in the speeches of Isaeus which conclusively warrant what is said above. The childless Menekles ἐσκόπει ὅπως μὴ ἔσοιτο ἄπαις, ἀλλ’ ἔσοιτο αὐτῷ ὅστις ζῶντα γηροτροφήσοι καὶ τελευτήσαντα θάψοι αὐτὸν καὶ εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον τὰ νομιζόμενα αὐτῷ ποιήσοι, 2, 10. To be cared for in old age, buried after death, and to have permanent attention paid to one’s soul is a single unified conception, in which ritual burial at the hands of one’s own ἔκγονοι (thus securing the cult of the family) does not form the least important part (cf. Pl., Hipp. ma. 291 DE: it is κάλλιστον for a man—according to the popular view—ἀφικομένῳ ἐς γῆρας τοὺς αὑτοῦ γονέας τελευτήσαντας καλῶς περιστείλαντι ὑπὸ τῶν αὑτοῦ ἐκγόνων καλῶς καὶ μεγαλοπρεπῶς ταφῆναι. Medea says to her children in E., Med. 1032 εἶχον ἐλπίδας πολλὰς ἐν ὑμῖν γηροβοσκήσειν τ’ ἐμὲ καὶ κατθανοῦσαν χερσὶν εὖ περιστελεῖν, ζηλωτὸν ἀνθρώποισιν). That he may share in this attention to the souls of the dead a man must leave behind him a son; upon a son alone this will fall as a sacred duty. Hence a man who has no son takes the chosen heir of his possessions into his own family by adoption. Inheritance and adoption invariably accompany each other in such cases (and even in the first speech, where, though nothing is actually said of adoption, it is certainly implied throughout). The [206] motive of adoption is said in the clearest possible terms to be the desire on the part of the adopter for a permanent care of his own soul at the hands of his adopted son: 2, 25, 46; 6, 51, 65; 7, 30; 9, 7, 36. There is consequently a close connexion between εἶναι κληρονόμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ μνήματα ἰέναι, χεόμενοι καὶ ἐναγιοῦντα (6, 51). It is a mark of the heir τὰ νομιζόμενα ποιεῖν, ἐναγίζειν, χεῖσθαι (6, 65); cf. also D. 43, 65. Duties towards the soul of the dead consist in the son and heir’s provision for a solemn funeral, the erection of a handsome grave-monument and in his offering of the τρίτα and ἔνατα καὶ τἆλλα τὰ περὶ τὴν ταφήν: 2, 36, 37; 4, 19; 9, 4. After that he is responsible for the regular continuation of the cult and of sacrifice to the dead, ἐναγίζεσθαι καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτόν (2, 46), and generally, καὶ εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον τὰ νομιζόμενα ποιεῖν (2, 10). Then, just as he has to carry on for the dead man his family worships, his ἱερὰ πατρῷα (2, 46: e.g. for Zeus Ktesios: 8, 16); so also he must, as the dead man once did, make regular offering to the πρόγονοι of the house: 9, 7. In this way the family cult secures its own continuity.—Everything in this reminds us in the strongest way of what is done for the continuation of the cult of the dead, esp. by adoption, in the country where ancestor-worship reaches its greatest height—China. Desire to perpetuate the family name, the strongest motive with us in the adoption of male children, could not be so strong in Greece when only individual names were usual. Even this, however, occurs as a motive for the adoption of a son, ἵνα μὴ ἀνώνυμος ὁ οἶκος αὐτοῦ γένηται, 2, 36, 46; cf. Isocr. 19, 35 (and Philodem., Mort., p. 28, 9 ff. Mekl.). The “house” at any rate is called after its ancestors (like those Βουσελίδαι of whom Dem. speaks), and if the house has no male heir this common name will disappear. Apart from this, the adopted person will call himself the son of his adoptive father, and will ensure the preservation of the latter’s name, in the well-known fashion, by giving this name to the eldest (Dem. 39, 27) of his own sons. (A similar perpetuation of a name is probably intended in E., IT. 695–8.)
[130] Appealing to φῆμαι, πολλαὶ καὶ σφόδρα παλαιαί, Plato asserts, Lg. 927 A, ὡς ἄρα αἱ τῶν τελευτησάντων ψυχαὶ δύναμιν ἔχουσί τινα τελευτήσασαι, ᾗ τῶν κατ’ ἀνθρώπους πραγμάτων ἐπιμελοῦνται. Hence the ἐπίτροποι of orphaned children πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς ἄνω θεοὺς φοβείσθων . . . εἶτα τὰς τῶν κεκμηκότων ψυχάς, αἷς ἐστιν ἐν τῇ φύσει τῶν αὑτῶν ἐκγόνων κήδεσθαι διαφερόντως, καὶ τιμῶσί τε αὐτοὺς εὐμενεῖς καὶ ἀτιμάζουσι δυσμενεῖς. It is only the circle of influence belonging to the ψυχαί which is here limited (and the circle of worship in consequence), not the potency of that influence.
[131] This is true at least of the Greeks, as ancient philosophy was already aware: Arist., Pol. i, 2; Dicaearchus ap. St. Byz. πάτρα (who apparently thinks of the πάτρα as held together by “endogamous” marriage). The whole development of Greek law and politics—this much at least may be conceded to the analysis of Fustel de Coulanges (La Cité antique)—points to the conclusion that the division into the smallest groups goes back to the beginning of Greek life. The Greeks were even then divided into families and groups of kinsfolk, from the combination of which the later Greek state grew up; they never (as happened elsewhere) lived the community life of the tribe or the horde. And yet, can we imagine the Greek gods without the tribal community that worshipped them?
[132] The idea of the Lar familiaris can be translated into Greek not inadequately by the words ὁ κατ’ οἰκίαν ἥρως, ἥρως οἰκουρός, as is done by Dionys. Hal., and Plutarch in their accounts of the story [207] of Ocrisia (D.H. 4, 2, 3; Plu. Fort. Rom. 9, p. 323 C). But this was not an idea current among the Greeks. The Latin genius generis = Lar familiaris (Laber. 54 Rib.) is most nearly approached by the remarkable expression ἥρως συγγενείας, CIA. iii, 1460. Inside the house, at the family hearth (in whose μυχοί, “dwells” Hekate: E., Med. 397), the Greeks worshipped—no longer the spirits of the ancestors—but the θεοὶ πατρῷοι, κτήσιοι, μύχιοι, ἑρκεῖοι. These were compared with the Roman Penates (D.H. 1, 67, 3; cf. Hyg. ap. Macr. 3, 4, 13), but their relationship to the spirits of the house and of the family is considerably less apparent than in the case of the Penates. (It is simply imitation of Roman custom that makes the dying Peregrinus call upon the δαίμονες πατρῷοι καὶ μητρῷοι: Luc., Peregr. 36. Στέφανος τοῖς τοῦ πατρὸς αὑτοῦ δαίμοσιν, ins. from Lykia, CIG. 4232 = BCH. xv, 552, n. 26. τοῖς δαίμοσι τῆς ἀποθανούσης γυναικός, Philo, Leg. ad G. 65, ii, p. 555 M. More in Lob., Agl. 769 n.)
[133] The ἀγαθὸς δαίμων of which Attic writers in particular often speak has very indefinite features. Those who used the word combined ideas—no longer fully intelligible—of a divine being of fairly definite nature and shape with this name which in itself was altogether too liable to generalization. Modern writers have declared that it was originally a daimon of the fertility of crops. But there is just as little ground for believing this as there is for identifying it with Dionysos, as was done by the physician Philonides in connexion with an absurd story which he has invented on his own account (Ath. 675 B). There is much, however, that points to the connexion of the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων with chthonic powers. He appears as a snake (Gerhard, Akad. Abh. ii, 24) like all χθόνιοι. (On a snake on a talisman the words are written τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ δαίμονος: P. Mag. Par. 2427 ff.) ἀγαθοδαίμονες was the name given to a special kind of non-poisonous snake (described after Archigenes, in the Vatican iologus brought to light by myself: Rh. Mus. 38, 278; cf. Photius, αρεῖαι ὄφεις, and again esp. s.v. ὄφεις παρείας, 364, 1). Sacrifice was made to them in Alexandria on the 25th Tybi as τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς δαίμοσι τοῖς προνοουμένοις τῶν οἰκιῶν: [Callisth.] i, 32 (cod. A), or as “penates dei” as the words are translated by Jul. Valer., p. 38, 29 ff. (Kuebl.). In this instance the ἀγ. δ. is evidently a good spirit who protects the house. Only with this in mind can we understand how anyone could consecrate his house ἀγαθῷ δαίμονι, as Timoleon did at Syracuse (ἀγαθῷ δαίμονι, Plu., Ips. Laud., 11, p. 542 E; τὴν οἰκίαν ἱερῷ δαίμονι καθιέρωσεν, Plu., Timol. 36, where ἱερῷ is evidently an ancient copyist’s error). Cf. also the saying of Xeniades, D.L. vi, 74. Such guardian spirits of the house are of course familiar enough in our own popular superstition, but in their case “the transition from souls of the dead to kindly house-spirits or kobolds is still demonstrable” (Grimm, p. 913). At the household meal the first few drops of unmixed wine belong by right to the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων (Hug, Plat. Symp.2, p. 23); then follows the libation to Zeus Soter. But sometimes it was the “Heroes” and not the ἀγ. δ. who preceded Zeus Soter (Sch. Pi., I v, 10; Gerhard, p. 39): they have taken the place of the ἀγ. δ., which itself reveals the connexion between the ἀγ. δ. and these “souls”. Another fact pointing in the same direction is the worship of the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων in common with many other deities of chthonic nature in the temple of Trophonios at Lebadeia (Paus. 9, 39, 5). In this case it is mentioned by the side of Tyche and these two are sometimes met with together in grave-inscriptions (e.g. CIG. 2465 f.) and Tyche herself appears with such chthonic deities as Despoina, Plouton, and Persephone (CIG. [208] 1464 Sparta). In epitaphic inscriptions δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν sometimes occurs as completely equivalent to Dis Manibus: e.g. Δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν Ποτίου, CIG. 2700 b.c. (Mylasa); δαιμόνων ἀγαθῶν Ἀρτέμωνος καὶ Τίτου, Ath. Mitt. ’90, p. 110 (Mylasa); cf. the inscr. from Mylasa in Ath. Mitt. ’90, pp. 276–7 (nn. 23–5, 27). The singular is rare: Δαίμονος ἀγαθοῦ Ἀριστέου κτλ. BCH. ’90, p. 626 (Karia). (δαίμοσιν ἑαυτοῦ τε καὶ Λαιτιτίας τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ = Dis Manibus suis et Laetitiae uxoris in the bilingual ins. from Beroea, CIG. 4452: cf. 4232 and 5827.) All these have come under Roman influence, but it is worth noticing, all the same, that the ἀγαθὸς δ. was identified with the Di Manes; which means that it was regarded as a daimon that had once been a disembodied human soul.—The subject might be dealt with more fully than would be in place here.
[134] In Boeotia (and elsewhere, particularly in Thessaly) the designation of the dead as ἥρως—always an indication of a higher conception of its spirit nature—is especially frequent on tombstones. More will be found on this subject [below]. The inscriptions are for the most part of late date. But even in the fifth century (at all events at the beginning of the fourth) the custom of “heroizing” the ordinary dead was current. To this Plato Com. (i, p. 622 K.) alludes in the “Menelaos”, τί οὐκ ἀπήγξω, ἵνα Θήβησιν ἥρως γένῃ; (Zenob. vi, 17, etc. The Paroemiogrr. connect this with the Theban custom of refusing the honours of the dead to those who committed suicide. This is certainly wrong and contradicts Pl.’s intention. Keil shows this clearly, Syll. Insc. Boeot., p. 153).
[135] Among the Epizephyrian Locrians ὀδύρεσθαι οὐκ ἔστιν ἐπὶ τοῖς τελευτήσασιν, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὰν ἐκκομίσωσιν, εὐωχοῦνται, Heraclid., Pol. 30, 2. In Keos the men never wear any sign of mourning, though women mourn for a year for a son who dies young; ib. 9, 4 (see Welcker, Kl. Schr. ii, 502). The funeral regulation of Iulis (SIG. 877) published in imitation of Athenian usage implies rather a tendency to exaggerated display of mourning, at least among the common people.
[136] e.g. Is. 2, 47: βοηθήσατε καὶ ἡμῖν καὶ ἐκείνῳ τῷ ἐν Ἅιδου ὄντι. Strictly speaking no one can βοηθεῖν the departed in Hades. Few nations have entirely escaped such contradictions between a cult of the dead in the house or at a grave and the conception of the relegation of the soul to an inaccessible other world. They arise from two simultaneously existing mental attitudes (representing also different stages of culture) towards these obscure subjects. The naive theology of the common people reconciles such discrepancies by attributing two souls to men, one of which goes down to Hades while the other remains beside the still-animated body and receives the offerings of the family: e.g. North American Indians: Müller, Ges. d. Amer. Urrel. 66; cf. Tylor, i, 434. These two souls are in reality the creation of two mutually incompatible modes of thought.
[137]—idne testamento cavebit is qui nobis quasi oraculum ediderit nihil post mortem ad nos pertinere? Cic., Fin. ii, 102.—Besides Epic., Theophrastos seems to have made some arrangement for the regular celebration of his memory (by the associates of the Peripatos?). Harp. 139, 4 ff.: μήποτε δὲ ὕστερον νενόμισται τὸ ἐπὶ τιμῇ τινας τῶν ἀποθανόντων συνιέναι καὶ ὀργεῶνας ὁμοίως ὠνομάσθαι· ὡς ἔστι συνιδεῖν ἐκ τῶν Θεοφράστου διαθηκῶν. The will of Thphr. preserved by D.L. 5, 2, 14, is silent on the point. [209]